Chrome vs Brave: Same Engine, Opposite Defaults
Both run on Chromium. One ships Google's account, search and sync; the other strips them and blocks trackers by default. What that changes.
Published October 6, 2026· By Juan Martinez
Chrome and Brave render pages with the same engine. Brave is a Chromium fork, and Chrome is Google’s own proprietary build of Chromium, so a site that works in one almost always works in the other, and Chrome extensions install in both. Compatibility is not what separates them. What separates them is what each vendor adds on top of the shared code. Google adds its account sign-in, a search engine that is the default in some countries and usage statistics that are on from the first launch, and ships no tracker or fingerprinting defense at default settings. Brave removes Google’s services, turns on ad and tracker blocking for every site, randomizes fingerprinting values, and encrypts sync end to end by design. Brave’s 7.6 against Chrome’s 4.0 is a wide gap, and most of it comes from defaults rather than from the engine.
| Google Chrome | Brave | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.0 | 7.6 |
| Engine | Chromium | Chromium |
| Open Source | partial | full |
| Telemetry | opt-out | opt-out |
| Anti-Fingerprint | none | standard |
| Ad Block Built-In | ❌ | ✅ |
| Sync encryption | Google Account keys by default; an optional passphrase encrypts certain data so Google cannot read it | End-to-end encrypted by design (sync chain secured by a seed phrase) |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS |
| Est. | 2008 | 2016 |
Want to compare every field side by side? Open the full comparison table.
What they share
Chrome launched in 2008. Brave launched in 2016 as a Chromium fork, and because the engine underneath is the same, Chrome extensions install and work, and sites render the way they do in Chrome. Platform coverage is identical too: both ship official builds for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.
That shared base is why this comparison is not about engines. The choice between them is a choice about defaults, services and business model, which is where the two vendors went in opposite directions.
What each ships on top of Chromium
Chrome’s additions point back to Google. Signing in with a Google Account saves bookmarks, passwords and other browser data to that account, and once signed in, Google’s help page says you can be signed in automatically to Gmail, YouTube, Search and other Google services. With Web & App Activity on, Chrome history saved to the account “may be used to help personalize your experience across Google products and services.” Google Search is the default search engine in some countries; in others, Google says you may be asked to choose. With “Improve search suggestions” on, what you type in the address bar goes to the default search engine with your IP address and cookies.
Usage statistics and crash reports are on by default in Chrome. Google’s help page says the setting “is enabled by default” and can be turned off at install or later. Crash reports “may include site URLs, your activity before the crash, and the contents of the memory at the time of the crash.” Third-party cookies are blocked by default only in Incognito. In a normal window they are allowed, and in April 2025 Google said Chrome would keep its current approach to third-party cookie choice rather than roll out a new prompt. There is no built-in ad or tracker blocker.
The PrivacyTests.org default-settings results from 29 September 2026 put numbers on that. Chrome 154 passed 0 of 19 tracking-cookie protection tests, 5 of 19 tracker content-blocking tests and 0 of 23 tracking query-parameter tests. It also passed 0 of 16 cross-session first-party and 0 of 16 cross-session third-party tracking tests, which check whether cookies and cached storage persist between sessions. Global Privacy Control is not enabled by default.
Brave strips Google’s telemetry and sign-in services out of the Chromium code and ships its own layer instead. Shields is on by default on every site: it blocks third-party ads and tracking scripts, strips many cross-site cookies, upgrades connections to HTTPS where possible and dismisses cookie-consent banners. The default search engine is Brave Search, Brave’s own. The cost of blocking by default is occasional over-blocking, where a checkout form won’t submit, an embedded video won’t load or a login loops, and the fix is one click on the Shields icon to lower protection for that site.
Brave is not telemetry-free either. P3A product analytics, crash reports and a daily usage ping are on in a fresh install and have to be switched off under Settings, Privacy and Security, Data Collection. Brave says P3A is designed to be non-identifying, but the data still leaves the machine until you turn it off. On telemetry the two are close: both send usage data by default, and both let you opt out. The difference is what else is on. Chrome’s defaults add cookies allowed across sites and, once you sign in, account linkage; Brave’s add blocking.
Fingerprinting and identity
Chrome has no fingerprinting defense at default settings. On the same PrivacyTests.org page it does not resist system font detection, the one fingerprinting test listed there.
The one network-level privacy feature Google built never reached normal browsing. IP Protection was a two-hop proxy scoped to Incognito mode only, with Google running the first hop. In October 2025 Google listed it among ten Privacy Sandbox technologies it decided to retire, citing low adoption, and the repository was archived on 3 November 2025. PrivacyTests.org records IP address hiding as not enabled by default in Chrome. In Brave, IP hiding comes only from its paid VPN or its Tor-routed Private Windows; in a normal window neither browser hides the IP address by default.
Brave’s answer is farbling. Each session, and separately for each site, it feeds slightly randomized values to the APIs commonly used for fingerprinting, including canvas readback, Web Audio and WebGL. On a single-session test such as EFF’s Cover Your Tracks, a fresh Brave install typically comes back with a non-unique fingerprint. The limit is structural: randomization makes you look different every time rather than identical to everyone else. A paper at the ACM Web Conference in 2025 demonstrated attacks that defeated randomization-based canvas defenses, Brave’s included, by running statistical analysis across repeated samples, and concluded that no fully deployable defense currently exists. Farbling raises the cost of fingerprinting against casual commercial tracking. It does not end it.
Trust history and who pays for it
Chrome’s trust history is about how closely the browser is tied to Google’s account and data collection. In September 2018 Chrome 69 began signing users into the browser automatically when they signed into Gmail or another Google service, with no overt notification. Sync was not turned on automatically, and Chrome 70 added a control to turn the linking off. In 2020 users filed a class action, Brown v. Google, alleging that Google’s analytics, cookies and apps tracked them “even when they set Google’s Chrome browser to Incognito mode.” The suit sought at least US$5,000 per user. Under settlement terms filed in April 2024, Google would update its disclosures about private browsing, let Incognito users block third-party cookies for five years and destroy billions of data records. It paid no damages, and Google’s spokesperson said: “We never associate data with users when they use Incognito mode.” Final court approval of the terms is not confirmed. For what Incognito does and does not hide, see is Incognito mode actually private.
Chrome also has real security engineering on its side. In the default Standard mode, Safe Browsing checks a list stored on the device first and, for unknown URLs, sends “an obfuscated portion of the URL to Google through a privacy server that hides your IP address.” Google wrote in August 2024 that the Chrome bug bounty was turning 14. A bug bounty finds security flaws; it does not review what the browser collects. No independent audit report of Chrome is published, and the build you install is proprietary, distributed under separate terms, even though most of its source code is open through Chromium.
Brave’s record is shorter and not clean. In June 2020 its address bar autocompleted typed URLs for cryptocurrency exchanges to versions carrying Brave’s own affiliate referral code, enabled by default without notifying users. CEO Brendan Eich called it a “serious error of judgement” and Brave shipped a fix. In 2021 a regression, CVE-2021-21323, caused DNS requests from Private Windows with Tor, including .onion lookups, to bypass the Tor proxy and reach the user’s DNS provider for months before it was reported through HackerOne and fixed in version 1.20.108. Brave is funded by venture capital, including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, and a 2017 token sale, and its revenue comes from its own advertising platform. Brave Rewards, the BAT token and the wallet are opt-in and off until you turn them on, but Brave has been criticized for promoting them in the interface.
Brave’s code is fully open: brave-core, the buildable source, is public under MPL 2.0. It has no published independent security audit of the browser itself either, relying on its open codebase, a HackerOne bug bounty and internal reviews; the 2024 third-party audits Brave points to cover its separate paid VPN, not the browser. Both vendors have a documented incident in which a default worked against the user. The difference today is in the defaults: Chrome’s send usage statistics to Google and leave third-party cookies on in normal windows, while Brave’s block third-party ads and trackers and keep its crypto features off until chosen.
Sync and extensions
Both sync bookmarks, passwords and history across all five platforms. The question is who can read that data on the server. Chrome syncs through the Google Account. Google’s help page says “you can choose to encrypt certain data with your own passphrase, so Google cannot read this data,” and that information sent to Google is encrypted in transit. The passphrase is optional and limited to certain data, so a standard signed-in Chrome profile syncs data Google can read, and synced browsing history is kept for up to one year depending on account settings.
Brave Sync needs no account. Setting up a sync chain generates a 32-byte seed shown as a BIP39 word list; other devices join with the phrase or a QR code. The phrase is stretched with scrypt into an AES key, and Brave’s servers store only ciphertext and do not know how many devices are on the chain. There is no Brave account behind it, so nothing about the sync setup is tied to an identity.
On extensions, Chrome’s platform changed over 2025 and 2026. Manifest V2 extensions were disabled by default on 31 March 2025 with an option to turn them back on, disabled for all users with no way back on 24 July 2025 in Chrome 138, and the remaining ones were removed from the Chrome Web Store on 31 August 2026. Brave’s Shields is built into the browser rather than installed as an extension.
Which one fits
Google Chrome is reviewed here as a browser with more than 10 billion Android downloads, not as a recommendation. It fits someone whose priority is that every site and extension works on every device, with sync through the Google Account they already have. Its 9.0 in Usability & Compatibility is the one category it wins. A few settings changes reduce what leaves it: turning off usage statistics, blocking third-party cookies everywhere and setting a sync passphrase. None of them adds a tracker blocker or a fingerprinting defense.
Brave fits someone who wants Chrome’s compatibility with blocking already switched on, sync that the server cannot read and no Google Account in the loop. It asks for about ten minutes in settings to turn off P3A, crash reports and the daily ping, tolerance for the occasional site that needs Shields lowered, and acceptance of a vendor whose business is ads and a token economy and whose 2020 incident was an affiliate decision made on users’ behalf. Its fingerprinting defense helps against casual tracking, and 2025 research demonstrated attacks that defeat it.
Brave’s overall 7.6 against Chrome’s 4.0 comes down mostly to two categories. Brave leads Privacy Defaults by 6.0 points (8.0 to 2.0) and Anti-Fingerprinting by 5.0 (7.0 to 2.0); weighted at 30% and 25%, those two account for 3.05 of the 3.675-point gap before rounding. Transparency (6.5 to 4.0) and Cross-Platform & Sync (9.0 to 7.0) add the rest, and Chrome’s 0.5-point lead in Usability & Compatibility (9.0 to 8.5) takes back less than a tenth of a point. With the same engine and the same platforms, the difference is mostly what each browser does before you change a setting.